My 6 year old DD is in year 1. She is back in school tomorrow after half term. We were sat doing some crafts earlier and she suddenly started saying all this stuff to me about her friends at school and it's left me feeling a bit worried. I was aware of bits of this from during the last half term, but it's the first time it's all come out like this.
Around Christmas last year she formed a very close friendship with a girl in her year. If her friend was off she would find other children to play with but her and this other little girl were clearly joined at the hip. I did really encourage her to keep up the other friendships as well.
Since September this year another girl has started playing with them and increasingly often my daughter is coming home and saying this new girl has said she can't play with her and the original friend. We talked a lot about how I could understand it would make her feel sad but she couldn't force them to play with her and encouraged her to play with other children which I know she has been doing.
Chatting about it today it does seem like it has been happening more than I had thought. She said she finds it hard because everyone else already has their little groups and the games they play, and she doesn't always find anyone playing anything she enjoys. We talked about how we couldn't expect people to change to what we wanted to play and if she joined in with some different games she might find she enjoys them. It sounds like she had been doing that anyway but is just missing her old friend who she loved playing with.
She seemed a bit sad about the whole situation but not massively so. I had noticed her being more tearful towards the end of term but it could be unrelated. I totally realise she won't be behaving perfectly in all this and I am not getting the complete story but I guess I just want to know if this level of friendship drama is normal? Should I be doing anything to help other than listening to her and building her confidence?